Good Times with the Family

Mitchell had his 3rd birthday last week. He is such a sweet guy! Everyone is the family is quite taken with him, even Annalisa. (She's the toughest to win over) He is pleasant, cheerful, happy, and always amazed at the world around him. Maren told me she wishes she could be his godmother or something, if only Mormons did that sort of thing. 

He loves monkeys, and he is also afraid of monkeys, This may have to something to do with big brother Chase's nighttime stories. Anyway, Mariah is following in her Aunt April's footsteps and made him a special cake. She even ran to the neighbors at the last minute to get a banana for a finishing touch. (Too many people thought the cake was a teddy bear)

Cousins from Arkansas were there for the occasion and their for their Spring Break.

Mariah was on top of everything for this birthday. She even hung the streamers. 

She loves her little brother. She was so excited to see the look of surprise on Mitchell's face when he walked into the room and saw his birthday decorations. Mitchell's expressions of surprise are very gratifying. Seeing Mitchell experience Halloween was awesome.

Elena holding little Max

The Burdge girls were loving having a baby in the house.

There's that stinky ferret. 

Poor guy. I mean- look at him...

Geoff offered up a caption for the ferret picture-

"Keep playing dead. Someday your dream will come true."

Everyone wanted a turn holding the baby.

There was a bit of chaos in the opening of the presents. 

Too many willing participants, I think. Mitchell looked slightly terrified at times.

Like right here.

"London Bridges"

Aren't they adorable?

 

Angelina came to my preschool last week. She got to make some new friends and play with all her old toys and things that Tally donated.

I heard her saying, "Hey, we have this at our house too!" 

Uh, no... you don't.

Trampolining

For Tally's belated birthday celebration, we got pedicures. 

After seeing April's amazing Japanese pedicures, this is on the boring side.

You never know exactly what you're going to get when you ask for nail art. Some times are better than others. Still, it felt really good to be pampered for a while.

Spring Break at home

We stayed home for Spring Break last week. It is too busy to get away. The kids have been asking to take a trip, but they will just have to wait. We took things pretty easy, sleeping in and having fun. I required minimal chores and practicing. I think they enjoyed it. I hope, because it's back to school tomorrow.

 We're starting to get a warm day here and there. Thank goodness! The winter is nearly over.

They begged to set up the waterslide, but we compromised with attaching the hose and spraying them down. 65 degrees is not warm enough to set up the slide. I think they figured that out when the ice water from the hose hit them.

               With all the painting I was doing, I could only manage one activity each day.

One day I bought Frozen and we watched it together with popcorn and friends.

One day I bought three kinds of ice cream, a special treat.

This day we went to Steak & Shake with the family. They go out to eat so rarely, that it is good to get a little practice on how it's done.  We had recently been invited to the Moore's house for a Sunday dinner, so they had heard the long list of do's and don'ts already. (along with the list of rewards and threats) But we reviewed them again. They were pretty well-behaved. It's not easy though. I have not been the best mom at teaching manners unfortunately.

Both dinners went without too much humiliation, although we did have a few interesting moments while playing Apples to Apples with the Moores. Apples to Apples always gets a bit crazy and frustrating with our family, but we assured Geoff and Brother Moore (who plays one game per year) that we would only play up to 3 cards. As Geoff revealed the cards for his adjective (can't remember which, but probably something like "cuddly") he noticed that the card for Dracula had blood all over it. Nice. We laughed and everyone looked at their hands so we could discovered which of us was wounded. It was Trevor. Paper cut. After washing up, cleaning the card, and applying the bandaid, we were still finding bloody cards. It was rather disgusting. We grabbed all Trevor's cards (the game was brand new) and Maren cleaned them up. Then there was that moment when Alec jumped up and yelled, "I'm a bug!" then went back down to the floor to act like one. Everyone laughed, but I knew the time was rapidly approaching when we needed to make our exit.

They had a few sleepovers, play dates, and family meals.

Max is only getting cuter.

This kid often has a Band Aid on his forehead.

This is not an uncommon sight.

 The big kids helped me last Thursday with a field trip to the St. Louis Zoo with 9 preschoolers. They were excellent helpers and we lost not a single preschooler. I can't complain at all. They were amazing.
As a reward, my kids got to go to The Lego Movie.

The hammock made with the bunk beds didn't exactly work out.